The Rehabilitation of Elena Kagan and the Military

posted at 3:36 pm on May 11, 2010 by Jazz Shaw

This morning, the unenviable task of spinning Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s history with military recruiters on campus fell to Valerie Jarrett. She appeared on Morning Joe (on MSNBC) and immediately dove into the task of “setting the record straight.” (This comes at roughly one minute into the video below. Transcript follows.)

“I do want to straighten out one thing that was alluded to earlier. Elena Kagan welcomed the military on campus. She encouraged them to come. They worked very closely with the Veterans’ Affairs Office. What she didn’t do was… she continued the practice of her predecessor of preventing employers who discriminate on the basis of race or sexual orientation or religion from working directly with the office on the campus that’s in charge of helping people find jobs. That’s it. That’s it. So Joe, earlier you were just flat out wrong.”

Scarborough, to his credit, responded by reading back something that Kagan had written herself.

“The military was barred f(rom Harvard) for many years. Last year, the Dean of Law School, (speaking of herself) in consultation with other officers of the university, reluctantly lifted this ban for the military. The Dean took this action because of a new ruling by the Department of Defense stating that unless the law school took this action, the entire university would lose federal funding.”

“It seems to me, Valerie, that what you’re talking about is a distinction without a difference. She was disappointed that recruiting was allowed back at her law school.”

Give Jarrett credit here. She was totally unflappable. Even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary, she continued marching on with the spin of the day as if Joe had never spoken a word.

“Joe, you know I love you, but you’re absolutely wrong.”

Oh, really? Over at Redstate, Brian Darling gives us a refresher course, reminding us that Senator Jeff Sessions already addressed this issue at length.

During her tenure as dean, Ms. Kagan barred the U.S. military from coming on the Harvard Law School campus to recruit young law graduates to be JAG officers in the U.S. military. That was from November of 2004 through September of 2005. She barred them from coming and recruiting on campus while 150,000 of our finest men and women in this country were serving in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan and during a time in which 938 troops died in combat, preserving the rights of people like law deans, faculty, and students to have all the opinions they want. Her decision to bar the military from her campus during a time of armed conflict represents exceedingly poor judgment and leadership, particularly for someone who wants to lead the Department of Justice, the executive branch, and support the military of the United States. By refusing to allow military recruiters on the Harvard Law School campus, she placed her own opposition to military policies above the need of our military men and women to receive good legal advice, even from Harvard lawyers. And she did so at a time when the military, serving in conflicts in two foreign countries, was facing a host of complex legal issues. We are still fighting over them, for that matter.

I think we all knew that Team Obama was going to try to spin this issue up, but I assumed they were going to cook up a plan that was slightly more creative than a flat denial of reality and the Dean’s own record of published statements. Will this be enough to derail the nomination? Should it be? Time alone will tell, but they’re coming out of the gate limping on the first day. Kagan may still be confirmed, but either way she’s already beginning to look like the Harriet Miers of the Obama administration.

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Elena Kagan welcomed the military on campus. She encouraged them to come.

Truth

During her tenure as dean, Ms. Kagan barred the U.S. military from coming on the Harvard Law School campus to recruit young law graduates to be JAG officers in the U.S. military

The White House says X, but the truth is Y. Where on earth do these guys get off LYING so damn blatantly? Who do they think we are? No wonder Obama wants graduates to stay away from electronic devices, because, if it wasn’t for electronics and the internet, we wouldn’t know he and his administration were such flat out LIARS.

she continued the practice of her predecessor of preventing employers who discriminate on the basis of race or sexual orientation or religion from working directly with the office on the campus that’s in charge of helping people find jobs.

So if an employer with a known diversity hiring program, or Affirmative Action hiring program were to go to Harvard to recruit, would they be banned from the campus?

Kagan may still be confirmed, but either way she’s already beginning to look like the Harriet Miers of the Obama administration.

Let’s see, never was a judge, not much in writing, bad debut in first case before SCOTUS as SG. Not to mention a hairdo straight out of Le Salon de Samurai.
She’s beginning to smell like a stealth fart in a crowded elevator.

I assumed they were going to cook up a plan that was slightly more creative than a flat denial of reality

You’re giving them a lot more credit than they deserve. Haven’t we been told to ignore the facts and evidence that practically kill the idea of man-made global warming? To ignore the fact that at Fort Hood, Hasan was a huge Muslim? To ignore The One’s blatant ties to Marxists?

Denying reality is a true talent that only mentally ill (i.e. liberal) people are capable of exhibiting.

Credit for what? For being a bald-faced liar? You don’t reward that behavior and that’s what we’ve done in this country for far too long. It’s why politicians can get away with screwing us over.

Skywise on May 11, 2010 at 3:46 PM

Skywise you took the words right out of my mouth. Screw that nonsense where we give credit or show one iota of admiration to someone with so little moral character that she would lie right to our face.

Your “give her credit” nonsense is why people get fed up with politics AND with pundits who are more impressed with the ability of politicians to lie rather than be horrified at the ease with which they do it.

If Elena Kagan had any children, she would have encouraged them all to join the military.

MB4 on May 11, 2010 at 3:58 PM

The military is the last bastion of conservatives where the leftists are dead set upon destroying. Social engineering and political correctness are killing combat effectiveness. We are dealing with a huge PC case–Hassan–while we are fighting two wars. Not to mention, DADT redux. The left only destroys, it does not build, it perverts, it does not improve.

In her capacity as editorial chairman during her junior and senior years, Kagan spent nearly every evening at the ‘Prince’ newsroom. But Bernstein cautioned that Kagan likely did not write all the editorials. “That wasn’t her style … She was a very collaborative person,” he said. One set of unsigned editorials published in the spring of 1980, written in response to the federal government’s discussion of reinstating draft registration, attacked the militaristic identity the country was headed toward. The nation was “unfortunately” moving toward “an era in which myopic and over-sensitive ‘national pride’ precludes the thoughtful search for alternatives to an unnecessary draft registration,” it said.

Mr Obama was asked by George Stephanopoulos of ABC’s “This Week” programme whether he’d ever thought about military service and replied: “You know, I actually did. I had to sign up for Selective Service [a means of conscription in case of war] when I graduated from high school.

“And I was growing up in Hawaii. And I have friends whose parents were in the military. There are a lot of Army, military bases there.

“And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honourable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it’s not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

Like Barack Obama, Elena Kagan did not join the military because there were no active wars for her to fight in.

In fact, he repeated the phrase “big ideas” 34 times in the course of his lecture.

And got big applause.

He did discuss COIN principles, which begin with “securing and serving the people.” Not the American people, mind you; but local populations within and of the Islamic world. It is the disastrous vacuousness of COIN doctrine that it ignores the existence of Islamic culture, Islamic law, as I’ve written many, many times, but it is the disastrous vacuousness of COIN doctrine that now, by the general’s telling, influences all US military thinking. Worse than thinking, however, is how COIN doctrine manifests itself in unconscionable rules of engagement predicated on “courageous restraint” as a means, COIN theory goes, to make them like us. Petraeus didn’t talk about any of that, though.

I think we all knew that Team Obama was going to try to spin this issue up, but I assumed they were going to cook up a plan that was slightly more creative than a flat denial of reality and the Dean’s own record of published statements.

“And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honourable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it’s not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

well, there was Grenada, Desert One, Panama, Desert Storm, Kosovo and on and on for you to join up for over the next 10-15 years….

this is a mealy-mouthed answer. If I was drinking beer with someone that said this to me, I’d laugh in his face, then walk away

“And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honourable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it’s not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

Like Barack Obama, Elena Kagan did not join the military because there were no active wars for her to fight in.

MayBee on May 11, 2010 at 4:08 PM

I graduated then too. It was a confusing time. I actually thought it was the guys just younger than us who had to sign up with selective service. Those that graduated in 1980.

If Obama did register he was among the first who had to do it for about 4 years or so. I really thought it started just after us.

I bet recruitment wasn’t very high during that time. The idea of a volunteer army was very new. Everything the culture taught was about how to get out of service.

I would bet even more so in the crowds Obama ran with.

It is odd how that draft time has left such an impression on people like Kagan that she has never appreciated the difference between the draft and volunteering. She still has that 1970s distrust of the military.

“And I actually always thought of the military as an ennobling and, you know, honourable option. But keep in mind that I graduated in 1979. The Vietnam War had come to an end. We weren’t engaged in an active military conflict at that point. And so, it’s not an option that I ever decided to pursue.”

I was in the Army in West Germany in ’79. There was the Iranian Embassy hijacking , Solidarity “troubles” in Poland and a little matter of war between the USSR and Afghanistan. We were alerted all the time, and with the weakling Jimah Cahtah as CIC, who the hell new what was coming next?
So Oliar has his historical context wrong again. Surprise, surprise.

Almost a year and a half ago, the ease with which the people in this administration told lies and stretched the truth was stunning to me. Now they just make me yawn. It will be a good news post when it’s been found that one of them actually speaks the truth.

I read a while back at American Thinker (I think), that Oliar was still an Indonesian citizen upon graduation and didn’t register for that reason. It was also because of this fact that he qualified for aid at Occidental as a foreign student, which was broomed by the MSM during the election.

Why does the richest Univ in the country, Harvard, receive federal aid in the first place. Aid should be given when it is called for not just doled out like candy to keep someone doing the feds bidding. They will always hold that over our heads. Be nice and do what they tell us to do or they will with hold the money.

I am 6 weeks older than Obama. I graduated in May of 1979 and had to register with Selective Service in July of 1980.

txsurveyor on May 11, 2010 at 4:44 PM

You were a US citizen. Indonesia doesn’t allow dual citizenship so The Won didn’t have to register, which was one of the reasons for the State Dept passport snafu and cover-up. The Hillary/McCain thing was for cover.

Hmmm well I know he DID register, but the law didn’t go into effect until after he graduated. The law went into effect in 1980 and the first registrations were for men who were born in 1960, which is when my husband was born, and not just for 1980′s graduates.

It was an interesting time for sure because we had only been married a year and were expecting our first baby. We were worried he would get called up or something and then what would we do? I remember sitting outside the post office while he was filling out the forms and hoping there wasn’t a war or anything.

“For years, the U.S. military, because of its “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, was not able to sign such a statement and so did not use OCS [the Office of Career Services]. It did, however, regularly recruit on campus because it was invited to do so by an official student organization, the Harvard Law School Veterans Association.”

The military is the last bastion of conservatives where the leftists are dead set upon destroying. Social engineering and political correctness are killing combat effectiveness. We are dealing with a huge PC case–Hassan–while we are fighting two wars. Not to mention, DADT redux. The left only destroys, it does not build, it perverts, it does not improve.

ted c on May 11, 2010 at 4:00 PM

This comment just about nails it. I can’t really improve upon it. How did we ever get in this situation?

Denying military recruiting on campus is just politics. From a certain point of view, it’s no big deal, although I find it in bad taste. The big problem is that she did it because of her objection to the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law, which the military was following, but did not write.

So, lemme see if I got this straight: She uses power available to protest laws she doesn’t like. Doesn’t seem like Supreme Court material to me.

she continued the practice of her predecessor of preventing employers who discriminate on the basis of race or sexual orientation or religion from working directly with the office on the campus that’s in charge of helping people find jobs

someone needs to ask Jarrett, if this is true, what other companies did Kagal refuse to work with.